Conde Nast’s brand new magazine LOVE launched this week, hugely anticipated and aiming to shake up the failing fashion publishing industry, it was something we just had to get hold of. So much to our surprise when we got our hands on one of the first copies and it really was an anti-climax.

If you know POP magazine then you might see some similarities with LOVE, why? Because it seems that Conde Nast couldn’t buy POP so instead, they bought the staff. Namely Editor-In-Chief, Katie Grand.

The front cover bares a naked Beth Ditto, something that while looks great, isn’t as fresh as you think, with NME going for a very similar cover only last year. The amount of adverts is also astonishing. Being used to the approximate 25 pages of adverts in Vogue before you begin the magazine, but the first issue of LOVE a supposed more contemporary mag in rival to Dazed & Confused or I-D has 45 ad pages before a masthead appears and a monstrous 75 ad pages before the mag actually begins (thats nearly a third of the magazine content-less).

Inside the layout is contemporary yet a little pedestrian, although the big names are all there. Iggy Pop, Kelly Brook, Pixie Geldof, Kate Moss, Pam Hogg and more. Nothing really stands out, nothing jumps off the page screaming for a closer look. We’re not saying LOVE is bad by any stretch but it isn’t amazing either, feeling like another mid-range, mid-placed magazine.

In fact like a much respected fashion editor said to me at London Fashion Week only a few days ago, LOVE magazine is much like the real thing. On the outside it looks great but once you get into it, you find it is not quite what you expected and a bit of a let down.

LOVE has some really strong competitors, VOLT magazine in the UK has always been a favourite of ours, namely for its blow-you-away imagery and manifesto “something to be treasured and admired”, rethinking the magazine concept into an A3 format that is unbound and ready to be framed. Along with magazines such as Dazed & Confused churning out provocative photo shoots like the one shown above featuring Pixie Geldof and Alice Dellal we’re left wondering whether LOVE might need a bit of a re-think for the second issue.

Posted from Stylenoir www.stylenoir.co.uk

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The Golden Filter make their Chicago debut with Chicago’s own up and coming Yello Fever tonight at Sonotheque.

Sonotheque
1444 W. Chicago Ave
Chicago, IL
10 – 2 / $10.00 cover / 21+

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The 2009 Pitchfork Music Festival will be held in Chicago’s Union Park Friday, July 17-Sunday, July 19.

This year marks the fourth anniversary of the festival. The three-day event will showcase global artists on three stages. In years past the Pitchfork Music Festival has proven to be the best event to see indie stars on the rise. Over its five-year festival history, Pitchfork has invited artists such as Vampire Weekend, Band of Horses, the Decemberists, the Hold Steady, Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver, Animal Collective, Andrew Bird, Girl Talk, the National, Grizzly Bear, Diplo, and Cut Copy. The festival has also presented a wide range of established and widely loved artists that appeal to a diverse audience, such as Yoko Ono, Public Enemy, Sonic Youth, De La Soul, Spoon, Dinosaur Jr., Clipse, Mastodon, Ghostface and Raekwon, Cat Power, Iron & Wine, the Silver Jews, Jarvis Cocker, Os Mutantes, Klaxons, and Slint.

An independently run, consistently sold-out festival, Pitchfork attracts more than 45,000 fans of all ages from 45 states and 11 countries. Additionally, the fest not only supports local businesses and the local economy, but also promotes the Chicago arts community as a whole. Tickets for the 2009 Pitchfork Music Festival go on sale Friday, March 13.

Stay tuned for band announcements and additional information – pitchfork.com

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Totally running late on this: Moulinex and Louis La Roche are playing Caravan Disco in St.Gallen, Switzerland tonight! The party is happening at Palace, a former (movie) theater with plush seats still in their place.

Switzerland’s own Pimp The System and Caravan Disco DJs will heat up the atmosphere before the big guys from Portugal and the UK take over. Lots of big synth and french house, or whatever you want to call it.

I’m really excited to see Moulinex and Louis La Roche. (You know, that kid.) If you live in the area, come on over! If you don’t: I promise to ask them for new tracks!!!

In the mean time, check out their music here and here.

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Now that you’ve learned a bit about Alex Sushon (Bok Bok) below, have a look at his latest creation with Kate Moross. The pair have teamed up to direct the video for Simian Mobile Disco’s ‘Synthesise’. Phenomenal!! Totally trippy. Pretty much all you need projected on a blank wall, for your next mega warehouse party. I can’t imagine if the colors were flashing red and green. Rave on.

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I’ve been waiting for this Bok Bok & Manara mixtape to arrive in my inbox since it was discussed back in October 08 with Alex ‘Bok Bok’ Sushon and partner Sara ‘Manara’, the fantastic duo who commandeer the much hyped “Night Slugs’, at Egg in Londontown, along with L-Vis 1990. Alas, a fresh mix created just for Trash Menagerie and it’s pretty fucking fantastic! After one listen, came a second, then a third. For me, this mixtape exemplifies the brilliant sounds – U.K. bass of styles – of the moment. I suspect I’ll be listening to this gem a good few more times and then some. Undoubtedly, so will you.

Typically, when I receive an artist BIO, they all tend to read like a resume, but not Bok Bok & Manara’s. Their’s were something special, more of a good story that I feel is best read straight from the horses mouth. After listening to their mix, if you’re so inclined, stay for a few and read the story on how they came to be Bok Bok & Manara. When you’re finished with that, check their blog Lower End Spasm, and get your fill.

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Bok Bok & Manara Mixtape for Trash Menagerie Feb 09

01. JAMESON – This One
02. D MALICE – Gabryelle Refix
03. DJ MIKE Q – Diva Work
04. BENGA – Walking Bass
05. LIL SILVA – Seasons
06. RUSTIE – Diwali Boom Club Edit
07. LIGHTER – Skanker
08. KINGDOM – That Mystic
09. GREMINO – Be & See
10. HARD HOUSE BANTON – Sirens
11. DJ DOUBLE G – Get Loose
12. TUBBY – Slush
13. SKRATCHY – Shangooli (GEENEUS remix)
14. DJ HYPERACTIVE – Reptilian Tank (BB & M edit ft BUBBZ)
15. D1 – Bg
16. Night Slugs 6 Ikonika Township interlude ft ASBO
17. LIL SILVA – Funky Pulse
18. TERROR DANJAH – Scotch Bonnet
19. DJ WIRE – Believe Me (BB & M’s Latoya edit)
20. GEENEUS – Yellowtail
21. EGYPTTRIXX – Use Magic To Kill Death
22. PETRA & CO – Just Let Go!
23. ZOMBY – Pussy (Rumours VIP)
24. L-VIS 1990 – Zahonda
25. 2000F & JKAMATA – You Don’t Know What Love Is
26. BOK BOK – rooftop (outro)

BOK BOK:
I started djing years and years ago. I had to borrow some money from my friend’s inheritance to buy my first bruckdown decks – they were made by Gemini and barely kept a mix locked.

I’d grown up in South London and gone to school around UK Garage (pretty literally some of the times, Oxide & Neutrino went to my school !). It was always background noise to me, and I was on some swag shit until I heard Dizzee Rascal, Wiley and DJ Slimzee back in 2003-4 when they were young, poor and hungry. My world was instantly changed. I started taking DJing a lot more seriously, and also my sound changed completely – I started buying all the grime white labels u could, and became a GRIME DJ.

I got a show on a ghetto as fuck streaming station called UTZ (stands for Urban Tingz) which was based out of a weird council flat in Walthamstow, North-East London. The studio was literally an empty ex-living room which was scattered with juice drink cartons and McDonnals wrappers and smelled like high grade even when it was empty. I did a 2 hour mix show on there every Sunday night. Manara came to my first ever UTZ show. That was the start of our relationship. She stood out of the way of the studio webcam and tried to look busy in an environment where masculinity hung in the air. The station staff assumed she was my girlfriend, pre-empting the inevitable.

It was 2005. That autumn/winter we spent days and weeks on end together, playing playstation, gettn high and listening to tons and tons and tons of crunk and rnb. Manara brought r’n'b into my life, it was a total education. We both liked noise too, and we bonded over that. I could not stop playing this one batch of hyper-romantic grime tunes either, like Ruff Squad’s “I just died in your arms tonight”. That winter we hooked up.

We didn’t start DJing together for another year or so. I’d moved my radio show from UTZ to the less gully Sub FM (which I still do fortnightly to this day). I was playing grime, dubstep and UK G, but more and more those scenes were becoming (more…)